Monday, February 15, 2010

More With the Fat Head

I guess Fat Head really had an impact on Jason. We spent a couple hours this morning looking up carb counts on some of his favorite foods, and also reading about glycemic index and glycemic load.

(Found a good glycemic load chart here, although I wish they would break down more of the foods into cups and ounces and such rather than grams. I can't really visualize 120 grams of apple (and apparently am too lazy to look up conversion charts.))

This all started with Jason wondering how many grams of carbs are in his beloved $5 Footlong from Subway, which he eats almost every day for lunch. I've been telling him for awhile that it's notreally as healthy as Jared would have us believe. Turns out there are 96 grams of carbs in that footlong roll. If you're trying to keep your carbs around 100 grams per days (which is what I shoot for), then there's your day. Better eat a bunch of eggs and steaks for all your other meals and snacks.

He grew more and more depressed as I looked up his favorite foods and told him how many grams of carbs are in them (Texas Roadhouse roll: 227 calories, 28 g of carbs). I told him it's ok to have a little treat now and again. He doesn't have to cut things out forever, just most of the time. I feel lucky because even though I do like Bertucci rolls and chocolate cheesecake and such, I really do like eating chicken and salmon and vegetables and cottage cheese and yogurt. I even crave those things, especially when I have too much sugar at once (like at Christmas when I just wanted a big pan of roasted broccoli). I think Jason does like those things, especially when I make it and present him with a plate of good food, it's just more of a shift for him think about eating that way.

Also, I've been gradually getting to this point over the course of several years, while I lost weight and worked on figuring out what foods made my body feel the best. He's just starting. We'll see if it sticks.

4 comments:

Your 100 g limit on carbs is interesting. I've been tracking my weight on the iPhone Lose It! app since late June. One of the things you can choose to track is (are?) carbs. I haven't been tracking them, but I just now configured it to do it, because you're right, it's a good idea.

It is and it isn't. One thing the Fat head movie (and other sources I've read and listened to) discusses is how carbs - any carbs - spike your insulin and lead to insulin resistance, which leads to things like increase in fat cell size and heart disease. Fat doesn't do that. In fact, there is anecdotal evidence that upping your intake of fat, including saturated fat (but not trans fats!) will actually lower your total cholesterol and increase your HDL. It's really fascinating.

What's really interesting is the political motivation behind the low fat directive from the federal government, and how so many doctors at the time were saying there was no concrete evidence to show that low fat decreased heart disease. A lot of it has to do with the Farm Bill and the overabundance of grains in our food supply.

I know, conspiracy theory much?

Here's an interesting review of an article about the history of low fat in Britain: http://www.fathead-movie.com/index.php/2010/02/01/big-fat-lies-in-britain-too/